


Imagination is a Girl's Best Friend

by sweeterthankarma



Category: The Bold Type
Genre: F/F, S3E1: The New Normal, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18750856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: When Sutton tells her that Richard asked her to move in, Jane is fine. She’s totally, completely, entirely fine, unbothered and unaffected though a little bummed that she won’t be living with her best friend anymore— but really, it’s fine.Just kidding. Jane's heart falls lower than she thought was possible.





	Imagination is a Girl's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> We all know Jane can be dramatic, especially when it comes to Sutton, so as soon as I watched 3x01 my shipper heart took off. She was so upset about the possibility of Sutton leaving— I wonder why? ;)

When Sutton tells her that Richard asked her to move in, Jane is fine. She’s totally, completely, entirely fine, unbothered and unaffected though a little bummed that she won’t be living with her best friend anymore— but really, it’s fine. 

Just kidding. Jane’s heart falls lower than she thought was possible, and she doesn’t do a good job of pretending to be cool. Poker faces have never been her strong suit, after all, and Sutton, more than anyone, knows this. Kat does too, but Jane isn’t thinking of her right now; no, she’s just thinking of Sutton, like she always seems to be. Her cheeks are flushed red all the way up the elevator into work.

Later that day, both her best friends think she’s pissy about Patrick rather than the bomb that just dropped around her world. She’ll let them think that because Patrick is pissing her off anyways, and besides, telling them the truth is a conversation she isn’t ready to have, certainly not now and hell, at this rate, probably not ever.

Sutton is dating Richard. She’s in love.

Jane is dating Ryan. The love part...she doesn’t want to think about.

She likes him, sure, and he’s handsome and fun to be around and surprisingly sweet as of late, so much so that sometimes she wonders if his brain was somehow transferred with someone charismatic, someone so unlike who he was when they first met. 

Ryan tells her that she’s worth the brand of kindness that he gives her, deserving of all the affection and support she needs and desires, and while she doesn’t doubt it, she isn’t so sure she wants it from him. 

She might not want it from any man, actually, because the only people she can ever think about are Sutton and Jacqueline, two women who she has absolutely no chance of ever dating and come to think of it, maybe not even a right to crush on. Everyone who meets Jacqueline loves her instantaneously, like it’s apart of her nature to be magnetic to any person who crosses her path, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to Sutton or Kat if Jane were to admit one night, maybe after one too many glasses of wine, that she rather fancied her boss, especially when she wore low cut dresses and let her hair flow down past her cheeks. 

It might be an awkward conversation, especially the next morning when she sobers up and has to go into work alongside her new confidantes. Jane knows she’d get questioning, curious glances every time she left Jacqueline’s office, and she doesn’t want to taint her relationship with her boss with their observation and interest. She likes the secrecy of it all, how only she knows how desperately she longs for Jacqueline to hold her hand just a little longer. There’s another part of her too that doesn’t fully trust Kat and Sutton and their gossiping mouths always huddled together in the fashion closet, and she dreads what would happen if Jacqueline were to find out about her affection through them— especially if her feelings happened to be reciprocated. That’d be the perfect circumstance to shock Jacqueline’s perception of Jane right back into that of a needy child rather than a deserving adult, and Jane dreads that shift of opinion than anything.

God, she’s a loser for even imagining these kinds of scenarios to begin with.

As intense as pining after Jacqueline is, nothing is stronger than the way Jane feels to wake up every morning and fall asleep every night in the same space as Sutton. They’re best friends and coworkers and roommates, sharing everything to the point where Jane forgets what she owns and what she’s borrowed from Sutton. She’s is so used to being surrounded by her, so much so that she even does her laundry when she has enough time to do her own, and she can’t imagine what it’d be like to be without her, for their cramped Brooklyn studio to be absent of her knick knacks, picture frames, and energy. 

She’s going to have to imagine, though, because she’s going to have to be without her. She already knows Sutton is going to move in with Richard. Why wouldn’t she, after all?

She imagines Sutton sleeping beside him, a man too old to truly know her or the trials that come with her life— and this is how Jane truly feels about him, though she’ll never admit it. Richard is a nice guy, but no one is good enough for Sutton in her eyes. It’s selfish and greedy and disrespectful and true. 

Jane decides to not imagine what the house is going to be like without Sutton. She doesn’t think about her laying beside Richard every night, waking up to cook with his pots and pans rather than hers, kissing him and showering with him and being with him and falling even more in love with him. Jane does anything but imagine that.

Instead, she does what she always does and wonders what it’d be like to be the one half-asleep beside Sutton, her head pressed against the crook of her neck and the curve of her collarbone. She’d press kisses against her chest like she did that one time when they were drunk and overtired and ended up in a pile on the living room floor with Kat on the top. But that kiss was chaste and rooted in the norm of friendship, though she had of course wanted more, and Jane knows if she had the chance to do it again, in a different circumstance, she’d drag her lips slow, coat her skin with desire and need and gratefulness, and in her imagination, Sutton would reciprocate. 

When Sutton decides that she does in fact want to move out, Jane’s first thought is “thank god for imagination,” though she rambles a giddy “congratulations” along with a smile that doesn’t at all reach her eyes. She reaches out her arms for a hug, but she’s too late already; Sutton’s eyes are cast down, focused on her phone where she texts someone with an excess amount of heart emojis in their contact name, someone Jane already knows must be Richard. 

_ Thank god for imagination,  _ she repeats to herself. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm basically the only Jane x Sutton shipper but if you enjoyed this, please let me know! Come talk to me about The Bold Type in the comments or at my Tumblr under the same username, sweeterthankarma!


End file.
